Saturday, May 12, 2012

Music Rant. R-A-N-T. Nothing more, nothing less.

I was writing some music trivia questions tonight for an
online magazine, and while I was perusing an old copy of Joel Whitburn’s Top Pop to confirm some dates and
rankings, I came to a realization: The music industry started out on the wrong
foot and never recovered. The entire vacuum of popular music in the 20th
and 21st century has been the result of a colossal slip on a mighty
banana peel. And the general public has been stuck laughing at the same sad
shtick ever since.

There’s nothing in music today that fosters Art. Or even
just art. It has all been a slow slide down a snowy slope that pushed the actual
art and the people who could make that art off the course entirely, like Vinko
Bogataj on a ski-jump. Businessman have skied the interests of the general
public to the bunny slope, where their interests could be controlled and
protected; where the businessmen could give the general public the interests
they wanted them to have. The easily and readily reproduced ones. The safe ones
that don’t encourage thought. The safe ones where just a simple bass chord and
drumbeat controlled their movements, and pedantic lyrics controlled their
minds. Bland, soppy, unrealistic words of love balanced with just the right
power chords and musical hooks to keep the listener from disbelieving the
moronic panaceas painted by those lyrics.

The only real art in the music now is the actual business itself. Much like Orwell's "art" of Newspeak.
Hip-hop and modern pop music are as far away from actual
music created by humans as cave paintings are from Imax movies. Canned music pervades the everything. Tracks are laid down without a musician ever being involved. Autotuned voices mean no one needs to learn how to sing properly and that everyone will
sing properly in the same bland, whiny, patronizing voices. Nothing matters now
but the nebulous land of the Top 40 and Top 10. Very few recording acts can
really sit down anymore and record an actual honest-to-bogey album and make it a cohesive
work. For the big acts, every track is methodically laid out and parsed so that
manufactured hit-after-manufactured hit can be shoveled into the belly of the business beast.

It is almost a novelty to have a band that plays instruments
while singing to have a hit now. Let’s let Bieber play his drums a bit and
fiddle with a few instruments here and there, but make sure he’s out there
dancing and lip-syncing. The young girls love that. Make sure Beyonce’s out there dancing like
she’s a spastic Tina Turner-wannabe. The guys love that. That’s what the people
pay for. That’s what people are told to pay for.

The iconoclasts are still out there; bands that play their
own instruments in concert, sing their own songs, and rely on the power of
intelligent words and carefully crafted music to bring their art to life. But a
good number of these deviants-to-the-norm don’t even get recording contracts.
And if they do, they have to make major changes to themselves in order to
palatable to an audience that has been taught to expect perfection and tripe. Must
look as white bread as possible for the sheep to baaaauy their singles.

This has been going on since rock started as “rock ‘n’ roll”. Everyone had to sound like Elvis Presley. Everyone had to sound like the Beatles. Everyone had to sound like the Byrds, like the Bee-Gees, like Nirvana, like Eminem, like the Fray. A small change here and there. A slightly different sound. But really, the same, safe sound, with new packaging. Bands have always been given chances to record “new” sounds, as long as they fit into official parameters. Frank Zappa was signed because a talent scout heard one song and thought the Mothers of Invention were a white blues band. Trying to fit a band into a niche that was co-opted into safety from an entire race. That backfired completely and wonderfully. Of course, not fitting into any of the corporate molds forced The Powers That Be to marginalize Zappa and his music. His only popular music hits were harmless novelty numbers, like “Valley Girl” or “Dancin’ Fool”. You’ll never hear “Mo and Herb’s Vacation” or “City of Tiny Lights” on the radio. Too complex, too long for the bacteria-like culture of short-attention spans that the music industry has created.

Oh, and sorry, white folks do NOT play the blues. They steal them. Just like rap. The only white folks who should be allowed to rap were the Beastie Boys, since they actually took it on as an art form rather than just a hook.This was one of the few instances of trying
to fit a band into a niche co-opted into safety from an entire race that
backfired completely. Of course, not fitting into any of the corporate molds
forced The Powers That Be to marginalize Zappa and his music. His only popular
music hits were harmless novelty numbers, like “Valley Girl” or “Dancin’ Fool”.
You’ll never hear “Mo and Herb’s Vacation” or even “City of Tiny Lights” on the
radio. Too complex, too long for the bacteria-like culture that the music
industry has created.

Oh, and sorry, white
folks do NOT play the blues. They steal them. Just like rap. The only white
folks who should be allowed to rap were the Beastie Boys, since they actually
took it on as an art form rather than just a hook.

Music has to be safe. Safe for our kids. Safe so it can make
money. Which is the only reason the kids are needed in the first place. The
business takes advantage of the inherent sense of rebellion on all kids, making
something just a little different from their parents’ music for them to
consume. Your parents liked Elvis? Oh, so not cool! Nirvana. Yeah, that’s cool
and rebellious. Ka-Ching at the register. “Dad, I can’t believe you listened to
Nirvana. All the mumbling … listen to this Arcade Fire album. See? That’s what
speaks to me now!” Ka-Ching again. And again.

And the art of music dies just little bit more, with each
mp3 download. The only thing that keeps it going is the simple fact that music
is eternal. And it will find a way to be expressed.

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About Me

Rich Meyer is a freelance writer, editor and reviewer of random stuff. He has written over 30 ebook quiz books, available for the Kindle through Amazon.com (and a few still on Smashwords, pointless endeavor though that may be).
He is a volunteer and member of the Old Time Radio Researchers Group, the National Lum and Abner Society and was a card-carrying member in good standing of the last incarnation of the Mister Ed Fan Club.
Rich's biggest influences have been Frank Zappa, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Charles Dickens and the Firesign Theatre. He is also an avid comic book aficionado, a fan of Mego action figures since he was a li'l spud, and a collector of classic TV and movie serials on DVD.
Rich also plays annually in the World's Biggest Trivia Contest, broadcast from his hometown of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, on a team known as Collective Foole.
Rich lives in Pennsylvania with his lovely wife Mona and their menagerie of furry children.